Daily English Activities: writing

Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

How to improve your writing

Writing well in English can be a really useful skill to develop. Increasingly web-based communication for international business is done in English and much of that includes things like writing emails, reports and sending text messages.

Improving your writing in English can be challenging, especially if you don’t have a teacher to help you, but luckily there are some free web-based digital tool that can help you.

In this task we'll be looking at how you can use https://www.languagetool.org/ to help you.

Task

For this task you can use any existing text that you have written and see how you can improve it.

Improving your vocabulary

One tool that most good writers use is a thesaurus. This can help you to develop your vocabulary while you improve your writing. You can access the Macmillan Online Dictionary and Thesaurus for free at: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/

Just type in some of the words you are using in your text and you can check the to see what other words have a similar meaning. You can also check the pronunciation of the words. Just click on the speaker icon and you’ll be able to hear the word.

Finding and correcting errors

Of course it’s also important to get some feedback on your writing once you have finished it. LanguageTool https://www.languagetool.org/ is a free website you can use to check your spelling and grammar.

Just copy and paste your text into the field and then click on ‘Check Text’.

The site will highlight any spelling problems in pink and any possible grammar errors in yellow.

Click on the the highlighted word and you’ll see a suggestion for how to correct the error. You can then either use the correction, ignore it or find a link to check the grammar rule.

Once you’ve finished checking through your work you can simply copy and paste it back into your original document.

Using a tools like these regularly will help you to improve your English as well as developing your vocabulary and helping you to feel more confident about your written communication skills.

Best

Nik Peachey- Pedagogical Director - PeacheyPublications Ltd

How to improve your writing skills with regular practice and feedback

Developing your writing can be really challenging, especially at higher levels when you are working without the support of a teacher to give you detailed feedback. The best way to really make significant improvements to your writing though is to make sure you do some everyday.

In this activity we will be looking at how you can get ideas for daily prompts so that you have something to write about, and how you can get some very detailed and specific feedback and correction of your writing.

To do these we’ll be looking at three websites, two which provide stimulation for writing topics, these are Creative writing prompts from Writers Digest and the Toasted Cheese calendar of daily prompts.

To get the feedback on your writing we will be using a plagiarism checker called Grammarly. Grammarly doesn’t just check for plagiarism though, it also checks for errors and suggests ways you can improve your text.

Task

If you want a more challenging writing task, go to http://www.writersdigest.com/prompts.
Here you will see a page full of scenario prompts that you can write your own story around. The story or scene must be less than 500 words. I particularly like this site because if you click on ‘Read more’, you can find texts submitted by other writers and if you log in you can also submit your own text.

If you would like a shorter and simpler assignment go to http://www.toasted-cheese.com/webcal/webcal.cgi Here you will see a calendar with a prompt for each day of the month. Choose the one for today and compose your text.

Next comes the interesting part. Once you have finished your text go to http://www.grammarly.com/ and copy and paste your text into the field and click on ‘Check your text'.

To the left of the screen you will get an overall score for your writing and some idea of some of the problems.
To get really detailed feedback and suggestions for correcting your text, you’ll need to register. Grammar.ly offers a free 7 day trial, though you will need to enter some payment details and remember to cancel your subscription before the 7 days ends if you find that the suggestions aren’t helpful or you aren’t really using the service.
Once you have logged in you will be able to see your text and work through the suggested corrections.
You can select which things the site checks for.

You can also tell it what kind of document you are working on so that the feedback you get is more specific.

Then you can work through selecting the corrections you want to make.

Finally, when you have finished, you can download your document as a final copy.

Make sure you keep both versions of your text, then in a few weeks time go back to the original text and see if you can find the errors and correct them.
Once you have done that, compare with the version you corrected in Grammarly and see how many of the errors you found.

Doing small amounts of work, regularly like this can really start to improve your writing and make you more aware of your own errors and where they are likely to occur, but you do have to do it regularly.

Good luck with that and I hope your writing soon improves.

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Nik Peachey

Show and tell online

Show and Tell has been a very popular activity in the English language classroom for quite some time. It is often based around bringing in to class an object or photograph of something that is important to you and asking and answering questions about it.

Now you can 'show and tell' with the world and share images from your life and ask and answer questions using a website called Shuttercal. It's very simple, you just upload a picture each day and write a few sentences about it. This is a great way to practice reading and writing and communicate with real people.

Task:

First go to: http://shuttercal.com/ and create your account (It's free).

Once you have done this you can log in and start to look at other people's photographs and leave comments on the ones you like. You can do this just by going to the 'Explore' menu and looking for new photographs.

Click on an image that you find interesting, click on 'Comments' on the bottom right corner.
You should now be able to see a text field and add a comment or question. Once you have added a question click on submit and the owner of the image will get a message with your question.

Be patient it could take some time before you get a reply. Try to comment or ask questions about ten images.
You should also upload some of your own images. To do this, go to your own calender, by clicking on your name. then click on the square for today. You should then be able to browse your computer for an image and upload it. Youc an also add some comments and information about the image.

Keep adding images everyday and commenting on other people's images. This way you will build up a network of contacts to interact and communicate with.

I hope you like this activity and by all means look at my calender and leave comments or questions at: http://shuttercal.com/calendar/NikPeachey/

Here you can find more image based activities.

Read and Write Very Short Stories

Reading and writing both help to improve your vocabulary and give you the opportunity to use your language skills in a creative way.

Today's activity will show you how to get simple quick writing practice and how to give and receive feedback and criticism of your written work. The activity is based around a site called Five Card Stories and will help you to create a story based on 5 images.

Task:

First you are going to read some very short stories based on images. Look at the five images that go with it, read each story and then vote how good you think the story is. If you think the story is really good, give it 10 stars. If you think it's really bad, give it just one.

Here are 5 very short stories for you to read and vote.
Done with work
A relaxing day by the water
George
After the wedding
The colour blue

Now you have read and voted on the stories try to improve them. Below each story, you have the chance to write your own version using the same images. You can either rewrite the story and try to improve it or write your own story based on the same images.

To write the story just give it a title, use add a name (it doesn't have to be your real name) complete the story and then type in the two security words and save it to the site. You''ll then be able to come back each day and see how people have voted on your story.

If you enjoy short writing activities you can come back to the site and create your own story by choosing images yourself. Just go to: http://web.nmc.org/5cardstory/flickr.php and select the images you want in your story. Tip: It's easiest if the first image you select is of a person or animal, this can then be the main character in your story.

I hope you enjoy this short reading and writing activity and create some wonderful stories. Please leave a link to any you create in the comments section below.

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Nik Peachey

Write Your Auto Biography

An important part of being a good conversationalist is being a good listener and asking people questions about what they tell you, but sometimes you also have to talk about yourself and be prepared to answer questions.

In today's task you are going to answer questions about yourself and in doing this create your autobiography. You are going to do this using a website called Biographicon which is a site that collects the biographies of ordinary people like you and me.

Task:

Go to: http://www.biographicon.com/ and click on 'Create a new biography' then type in your name and create a new biography.

You will then see the frame for your biography. Click where it says 'Answer a questions about ...' and a field will open with a question and answer that you should complete.

Complete the answer to the questions and then click on 'OK, next questions'.

You will the see the next question. Work through answering as many of these questions as you can. When you have finished answering questions, you can click on edit and you will be able to upload an image of yourself.

You can also add some basic information like when and where you were born etc in the 'Overview' section.

Once you are finished you should have quite a complete biography of yourself that you can link to or share with friends.

As your English improves and things in your life change you can also go back and edit your biography. You don't have to complete it all in one day you can do a little more each day and add few more answers to questions.

I hope you have enjoyed this activity and soon have your biography ready to share.

Here you can find more writing activities for EF ESL students.

Learn How to Correct Errors

Students often expect their teacher to correct their written errors, but students can also learn a lot from looking for and correcting errors in written work.

This activity gives you the chance to test your correction skills and find errors in short texts using a site called BookOven and a tool called SpellChecker

Task:

Go to: http://bookoven.com/ Here on the front page you will see a short text that may have an error.

Look at the text carefully and try to find any errors. If you see one try to correct it. If you aren't sure you can copy and paste the text to http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/.
Paste the text in to spellchecker and then 'Spell Check.'

This will open a new window showing where any errors are.

Go back to BookOven and correct the error. You will then be given another error to check. Try to find and correct at least 10 mistakes.

You can do this everyday for a few minutes and it will improve your ability to check and correct your own work. You can also use SpellChecker to check your own compositions.

You can find more writing activities here.

Finding Out About People

The Internet is a great way to find out more about people from other countries, their lives and their culture. Understanding these things can make it much easier to understand the language and the things that people talk about.

Today's activity is based around materials from the New York Times and you are going to listen to ordinary people from New York talking about their lives and the kinds of things they do.

This will also help you develop your listening skills and your ability to understand a range of different accents.

Task:

Think about the things that you do each day and make some quick notes about your daily habits and routine.
Now go to: The Type A Teenager

Here you will hear a teenager from New York talking about her daily habits. Listen and compare them to your own.
The text is about 2 mins long and you can also watch the images of the girl. Think about how you would tell her about the differences between your life and her life. You can pause the audio if you want to make notes.

Write a message about the differences in your life. If you want to you can post the message on the website and read other people's comments at: One in 8 Million - Omika Jikaria
If you want to post your comments you will need to register on the site.

There are many more people on this part of the websites talking about their lives, so if you enjoy this activity have a look and a listen to the lives of some of the other New York people.

I hope you enjoy finding out more about people in New York. Check out more Daily English Listening Activities

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Nik Peachey

Learn Your Text Speak Acronyms

Over the years text messaging has developed its own system of spelling using acronyms, which can save time and make writing messages shorter.

Sms and different forms of text messaging have become more common in everyday English communication, so it is very important that you learn some of these acronyms and understand English text messages.

Today's task is a test of you texting vocabulary and it comes from the Sporcle website. Once you try the test you can see the answers, but first you might like to look back at this activity which shows you a poster written using English texting language

Task:

Go to: http://www.sporcle.com/games/chatacronyms.php You will see a grid with some texting acronyms.
When you are ready to start the test click on 'Ready? Click to Start'

You will then be able to type in your answers. If they are correct they will appear in the grid next to the acronym. If they are wrong you will have to delete them and try again.

You have 6 minutes to do the test. At the end of six minutes you will see the answers. If you find it too difficult, click on 'Give up and you will see the answers. You can then try again or come back and try it another day.

Be sure to make a note of any of the acronyms you didn't know. You could also try making sentences using these acronyms. Remember these are used when you are text messaging with someone. They aren't used in formal essays or letters to people.

Hope you enjoyed this activity and you find these common expressions useful.

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Nik Peachey

Write Your English Resume

Many people learn English because they need it to help find work. Having a resume or CV in English can also help you and help to display your English skills, but writing a resume isn't easy.

In today's activity you are going to create an English resume using a tool that will help you with the structure and the wording of your resume.

Task:

Go to: http://www.howtowritearesume.net/ and click on 'Start Your Resume Now'. You will need to register to use the site, but this is quite quick, especially if you already have a Yahoo or Google account.
Once you have registered the 'Resume Builder' will take you through the steps involved in creating your resume. First, you can start to add your details to the resume

You will then be asked to add a headline. If you click on the template tab you will get some suggestions for the wording of this.

You can then add details about your education, work history, achievements, qualifications etc. Again you can get help wording these where you see the template tab. You just select the appropriate words from the structure.

Finally, when you get to the format stage you can either download you resume as a text file (then edit on your computer using a word processor) or html (if you want to put it on a website)
You can also post it to a range of free job searching websites, but only do this if you are serious about finding work and your information is true.

I hope you have enjoyed creating your English resume. Here are some more Business English Activities.

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Nik Peachey

50 Word Stories

Writing creative stories is a great way to practice your English and get the chance to use a wide range of vocabulary and different sentence forms. Creative writing can take a long time though.

In today's activity we look an idea from the DailyLit website. The challenge is to write a story in 50 words. No more no less. The story should still have a beginning a middle and an end.

Task:

To get some ideas for how to do this, looks at this page on the DailyLit site and read through some of the stories that users of the site have submitted.
Got to: http://dailylit.com/forums/other/etc/2009/03/18/50-word-challenge

If you are finding it difficult to start, you can find some great opening lines here to get your story started, just pick one. Story Starters
Try to write your own 50 word story. When you have finished you can post it to the DailyLit site. Just got to: http://dailylit.com/register and register for free. You just need to create your own username ans password.

I hope you enjoy writing your 50 word stories and post them to the site. Here can you can find 20+ more activities to improve your writing

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Nik Peachey

Writing an Essay in English

For many people writing an essay in their first language is a challenge, but writing one in a second language can be even more demanding and stressful. The key to good essay writing though in any language is good planning.

Today's activity looks at a tool called Essay Map to help you effectively plan your essay. It takes you through the processes involved in planning and at the end of the activity you can print up your plan to use it as a basis for you essay.

Task:

Before you begin you should think about the theme of your essay. You could to write about one of the topics from the lectures in our previous activity Listening to Lectures in English or you could watch a lecture on Academic Earth.
If you prefer to practice with an easier topic you could write about:
- : The challenges faced by young people in your country
- : Technology and the opportunities it offers for the future
- : The most interesting places in your country
- : Why you study English
When you have chosen a topic go to http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/essaymap/

Type in your name and the topic you are going to write about. Then go to the introduction and add a few sentences. Then click on the arrow to add main points

You only need to give brief sentences here. Remember this is only the plan and these are only the main areas you will cover when you write the essay.

Once you have these three main ideas you will be able to move on through the map and add the key points you want to include in each of these sections. Complete the whole of you plan and add a conclusion.
Then print out your plan. next comes the hard part. You need to sit down and actually turn your plan into an essay. Writing the essay though will now be much easier, as you have done the thinking part and now you just have to concentrate on the language and making your thoughts clear.

I hope you find this activity useful. Here can you can find 20+ more activities to improve your writing.

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Nik Peachey

I spotted the link to this site on the Micronarratives blog

Daily English Activities

Pages

How to improve your writing

How to improve your writing skills with regular practice and feedback

Show and tell online

Read and Write Very Short Stories

Write Your Auto Biography

Learn How to Correct Errors

Finding Out About People

Learn Your Text Speak Acronyms

Write Your English Resume

50 Word Stories

Writing an Essay in English

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